'CAMP'

Teen musical drama. Starring
Daniel Letterle
,
Joanna Chilcoat
and
Robin De Jesus
. Written and directed by
Todd Graff
. (PG-13. 110 minutes. At the Embarcadero.)
"Camp" is another of those summer movies that want to pluck at our heartstrings. If it would just stop plucking for a second, it might be enjoyable.

The premise is that Camp Ovation is a summer camp for the "American Idol" generation. But these kids aren't interested in top 40 hits, only Broadway musicals.

"Is that your father?" one of the campers asks, pointing to a photo of a bearded man on the nightstand.

OK, so we've established that this is a unique subculture among the high school population. But that's not all. If you're a guy at Camp Ovation, you're almost certainly gay. In fact, when Vlad (Daniel Letterle) shows up with a football, a guitar and an interest in girls, everyone is positively stunned.

You'd think, in these enlightened times, we would have reached the point where a heterosexual lifestyle would no longer be such a shock.

First-time writer and director Todd Graff is all over the place. He picks up characters -- the chubby girl longing to play a lead, the daft camp sports director and a foul-mouthed Cuban counselor-director who yells at the campers - - and then drops them as if they were never part of the movie.

Mostly though, like the campers, the biggest problem is the tendency to go over the top. Jenna's (Tiffany Taylor) strict parents don't just want her to lose weight -- they had her jaw wired shut. Fritzi (Anna Kendrick) doesn't just admire the stuck-up Jill (Alana Allen) -- she becomes a strange personal slave, waiting on Jill hand and foot.

Bert Hanley (Don Dixon), a burned-out, alcoholic songwriter who had a Broadway hit 10 years ago, starts out irascible, cynical and drunk. But those darn kids find some songs of his and play them and suddenly Bert puts on a necktie, cheers the gang on from backstage and even impresses Sondheim, who shows up for the big final. Oh, but Bert's still drinking.

There is lots of music and a genuine showstopper when Jenna sings "Here's Where I Stand" with such emotion that even her hardheaded dad gets the message.

But will show tunes resonate with fans of Clay and Reuben?

Oddest of all is the conclusion, which seems to hint that, after spending the summer with all these gay guys, Vlad may have caught the gay gene. Isn't that the kind of narrow-minded thinking this film is supposed to be railing against? This film contains profanity, crude language and sexual situations. -- C.W. Nevius

They have songs about palindromes, James K. Polk and a purple toupee, not to mention a jingle for every state in the union. They call themselves They Might Be Giants, and the name of this long-running, blissfully nerdy songwriting duo is just as self-consciously ridiculous as everything else about them.

The band, an acquired taste and a quintessential underground phenomenon, has amassed a long list of fresh ideas in its two decades of existence. It was the first independent group to elbow its way into the popularity club of the early years of MTV, getting its absurd videos broadcast alongside the hair- metal bands and Madonna wannabes of the era. It created Dial-a-Song, an answering service that features regular new ditties for no good reason other than the sheer hell of it. And it won a Grammy last year for the theme song for "Malcolm in the Middle" ("Boss of Me").

But is all that quirk enough to sustain a feature-length documentary? The two Johns of Brooklyn's They Might Be Giants, singer-guitarist John Flansburgh and singer-keyboardist John Linnell, are essentially the same people they were when they attended grade school together in Lincoln, Mass. -- the striped little-boy T-shirts, the geeky infatuations with science and human behavior. Although they prove the point that you don't have to be glamorous or arrogant to rock, that nebbishy quality sometimes drags the film down like an algebra lesson.

A long parade of celebrity fans, including Harry Shearer, Andy Richter, Janeane Garofalo, Dave Eggers and "This American Life's" Ira Glass, make cameo testimonials. The singer Syd Straw explains how Linnell reminds her of Emily Dickinson, and the inimitable New York talk show host Joe Franklin claims to have never pursued another guest as hard as he went after TMBG.

That kind of silliness -- Joe Franklin! -- is right up the band's alley. On the minus side, there's a sneaky, if predictable, attempt to preserve the Giants' legacy for posterity. One former confidante from the band's major- label period goes so far as to claim that the "importance" of They Might Be Giants "can't be understated."

That's precisely the kind of hyperbole that the two Johns target with their cracked sense of humor. "Gigantic," like the band it portrays, is a modest amusement.

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